As promised previously here is another chapter from my book-in-the-making The Future Of Marketing:
Let me start demonstrating my Pythian prowess by making the following
statement: In the future products will talk directly to consumers and I
don’t mean that in the metaphorical sense of the word. Cookies, detergents,
packs of crisps and cereal, apparel, toys, cars, soda cans, tablet computers
and smart phones, drugs, cigarettes, gum, you name it, they will all talk. And
they will be multi lingual of course; in fact each product will speak nearly
every language spoken anywhere in the world. Nonsense you’re saying? Science
fiction? Well, let’s unravel the thread which led us here.
Rewind back to
1994. My first year in PR. I never looked back ever since. Those were the
days…The fax machine was always busy sending press releases or receiving
supplier invoices, relationships with clients were much more intimate as email
hadn’t been invented yet and mobile phones the size of a shoe size 43 had just
made their debut. The mobility I felt the minute I felt my first Erickson (not
erection) in my hand was liberating. The magic of being able to have a
conference call with your client while sitting at you favourite café in town was
such a novel feeling. What about SMS? OMG! Back then this acronym was yet
unknown, CYBI? (Can You Believe It?)
In the early
90’s, British Airways (my favourite client) was the world’s favourite airline,
Marlboro (my choice) was very much everyone else’s choice, the dominant mobile
handset provider was Nokia (what happened to them?) and only a handful of us
had heard of the word Internet. It seems now that the world back then was a
crazy place. Who would have back then been able to predict that in August 2012,
Curiosity would become the first unmanned vehicle to stroll on Mars? Ok, maybe
that wasn’t that hard to predict, here is another one; who, back then, would have
dared utter that Greece would win the UEFA European Nations Cup in 2004?
Gotcha!
In the 90’s,
there was only so much you could do as a marketer, an advertiser and a PR man
to bring a product to the attention of the masses. It would either be through a
TVC, an outdoor or print advertisement, a press release, a promotional campaign
at high footfall areas, an invitation-only event, a celebrity brand ambassador
or at the shelf of the supermarket or store the product was on sale at.
Consumer feedback was non-existent, at least in real time. There was no real conversation
between products and consumers, just a one-way monologue.
Nothing much
changed till the early naughties other than Greek football fans’ perception of
their national team. But then, it was Armagedon personified. In the early years
of social media, a Google executive said that: “Social media is like teenage
sex. Everybody is talking about it but no one knows how to do it.” That statement has held its truth for a
while, but bears no relevance anymore. Marketers’ approach to social media has
matured and companies the world over have jumped on their bandwagon to develop
integrated campaigns that appeal to the billions of social media users. PR,
digital and other communication specialists have also become a lot more social
media savvy and are capable to throw them into their mix offering clients
holistic integrated communications plans to satisfy the yearn for social.
Technology is a
funny thing really. In the early 90’s Concorde passengers would get to New York
from London in less than five hours travelling on supersonic speeds in earth’s
stratosphere giving those willing to part with the asking fare of 2,500 GBP a
memorable view of the planet’s curvy shape and more free time to hit the Big
Apple’s shopping malls to spend even more of their disposable income.
Banks were
experimenting with ATM manufacturers the introduction of Iris technology.
Surely, this was destined to revolutionize the security of our banking
transactions, but decades later, consumers still fall victims of ATM scams
costing banks millions of dollars each year.
In both cases,
the merits of those technologies were outweighed by the hidden risks. I am not
sure what held back the ATM iris technology, but as far as the Concorde was
concerned, the tragic Air France accident which killed nearly 100 passengers
was the turning point for the aircraft’s ultimate withdrawal from operations.
No looking back
though for the Internet. Despite the many hazards associated with its usage,
from child pornography to bank account hacking the Internet is here to stay and
with it the social media revolution.
